


Forgetting

by amuk



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/stay night (Manga), Fate/stay night (Visual Novel)
Genre: Community: 31_days, Developing Relationship, F/M, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, Long-Distance Relationship, Loss, Lost Love, Missing Scene, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-23
Packaged: 2017-11-26 13:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amuk/pseuds/amuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's happening less these days. Of remembering and forgetting and the cracks in-between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> I just remembered how annoying Shiro was. D:
> 
> Prompt: 31. In the process of remembering, we are forgetting –fate/stay night?

It’s happening less these days.

 

-x-

 

Shiro has, for the past year, made a habit of waking up at crack of dawn, of waking the instant Saber leaves him.

 

(And she’s bathed in that golden light, glowing brighter and brighter. A smile, her face softening and—

 

He turns his face away at that point.)

 

-x-

 

She’s always gone before he can say goodbye.

 

-x-

 

He does grieve, despite what Rin thinks and Sakura believes. Not often, not in public, but he does it all the same.

 

It’s usually late at night, that same hour she appeared (like smoke, like dreams, like a wish that won’t come true). The moon is shining brightly and he can still hear the swish of her sword, the soft patter of her feet.

 

Her chest, rising and falling, lips parted for the silent intake of air.

 

-x-

 

There were too many things to tell her back then, when she left. Too many things left unsaid.

 

“I love you too.” “I miss you.” “Please don’t go.”

 

(And, most importantly, “Will this pain stop?”)

 

-x-

 

The house isn’t quieter, now—Fuji-nee still stirs up a mess and Ilya mouths off whenever she thinks she can get away with it. Sakura cheerfully doles out food and Rin...

 

Rin doesn’t come anymore and Saber will never appear again and perhaps it is not one person he’s missing but two.

 

-x-

 

There was something oddly kind in Rin’s eyes when she left the house, the country, him. She didn’t insult or tease him, as he expected, nor did she just walk away.

 

 “How have you been?” She asked maybe three questions with that one phrase. He picked the easiest to answer.

 

“Fine.”

 

“Really?” She closed her mouth after, not finishing that thought.

 

“Yes.” He woke up and went to school and cleaned the dishes before walking Sakura home. Ilya liked to play cards before she slept and Fuji-nee sometimes spent the night, too drunk to move. “Everything is fine.”

 

And those dreams, of gold and blue and clanging swords, they continued to come all the same.

 

-x-

 

Rin sends him an email, every now and then from the Association. More often than not, he reads them, composing replies in his head.

 

(When will you come back? Is it better there? How long does this take?)

 

He sums it up, three weeks after the first email and two after the third, “You can stay here during the holidays.”

 

-x-

 

A dream, perhaps. Saber is still fading, still vanishing.

 

“I love you.”

 

So do I. How long do I wait? When does remembering become forgetting?

 

-x-

 

It’s in the summer that Rin comes back. She appears unexpectedly at his door, a mountain of suitcases at her feet.

 

“You said I could,” is all she gives for an answer when he gawks.

 

“I did.” He still stares at her, at how real she is, and she brushes past him.

 

“Where will I be staying?”

 

He puts her in her old room, a layer of dust on everything. She gives him a pointed look but doesn’t complain.

 

-x-

 

The room where they planned strategies remains empty and unused. One morning, he puts in his tools and a vase of flowers and leaves the door open.

 

-x-

 

She always disappears the moment the sun glints in his eyes. His body always fails him then, averting his eyes.

 

He tries to stop himself each time. If he could just keep his gaze, maybe he could see her disappear and something would change.

 

Maybe she’d stay, maybe he could follow her through the gap between this time and hers, or maybe he could finally let go.

 

-x-

 

“It hurts sometimes.” He doesn’t want to admit that but Rin’s eyes demand nothing but honesty.

 

“I know.”

 

“It’s been getting easier to forget, to just let her vanish.”

 

“I know.”

 

“I’m afraid.”

 

“...we all are.”

 

-x-

 

It’s been happening less these days. He has yet to figure out if that’s a good thing or not.


End file.
